


sinking like a stone (carry on)

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-22 00:38:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1569566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A direct threat to Stuart's livelihood emphasizes the importance of friendship, Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy references, and pink fluffy leopard-print handcuffs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sinking like a stone (carry on)

**Author's Note:**

> The Big Bang Theory characters do not belong to me and I am making no money off this work of fan fiction. Especially because it's T and gen, I mean, sheez, since when do I write stuff without smut in it?
> 
> I wrote half of this back in March as a response to the Trope Bingo square 'bound together', then got bit by a different bondage bunny and posted '[Gift Box](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1510919)' instead. But I'd also had a conversation with someone -- I _think_ it was muir_wolf, or maybe galfridian? -- on either Twitter or Tumblr, also back in March(ish) (my memory can be so bad), about the notion of writing a story where one or two characters were talking, and the POV/'camera' slowly pulled back to reveal the whole ensemble. I wasn't sure if it would work as well in a narrative as in an actual film situation; whether it did or not, you be the judge.
> 
> * * *

“I feel,” Stuart says, “very much like I should be wearing a dressing gown right now.” He glances sideways at Raj. “Are you humming ‘Wrecking Ball’?”

Raj doesn’t verbally confirm or deny the accusation, but his guilty expression is answer enough.

“Come on, guys,” the site safety officer says. “I really need you to move.” He tries a friendly smile. “Why don’t you go for a nice coffee and let the crew get on with their job, okay?”

Stuart just shakes his head, and then shakes the length of chain between himself and the front door of the Comic Center.

“The plans have been in place for months now.”

“That’s nice.”

“I understand that you were offered a very reasonable amount for relocation costs.” The safety officer tugs at the hem of his orange vest. His smile is fading.

“That depends on your definition of ‘reasonable’.”

“Coffee sounds good,” Raj says, and Stuart discreetly kicks his ankle.

“I don’t know why you’re fighting this,” the safety officer says. “This is the last store on the block, and we need to build this new mall, so the store has to go.”

“Mmmm. Mr... Benson?” Stuart squints at the nametag on the man’s vest.

“Yes?”

Stuart slides down the glass door, chains rattling, and sits cross-legged on the sidewalk. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Benson retreats to the huddle of workers across the street. Most of them look relatively unfazed by the situation; about a third of them are taking a leisurely cigarette break, and most of them have coffee.

“Do you really think this is going to work?” Raj asks, settling beside him.

“Not really.” Stuart shrugs. “To be fair, they did offer me _some_ relocation costs, which would have been plenty provided that I was willing to relocate the store to a trailer park and live in a dumpster.”

Raj frowns, pulls his phone out of his pocket, and starts texting.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling for backup.”

 

Benson scurries back over to them twenty minutes later, just as Howard and Bernadette arrive.

“We’ve discussed–” He stops short. “There are _more_ of you?”

Howard hooks one end of a set of fluffy pink leopard-print love cuffs around Raj’s free wrist, closes the other cuff around his own wrist, and leans against the store’s window, a Superman standee looking out over his shoulder. Bernadette sits at his feet, settling back against his shins.

Benson clears his throat and tries again. “We’ve, uh, discussed the situation, and we can give you an extra day to clear all your stock out.”

“Great. I’ll get right on that.” Stuart doesn’t move.

“What do you _want_?” Benson asks.

“World peace would be nice,” Stuart says blandly. Raj starts giggling, and Stuart swears he can hear Bernadette snort laughter.

Benson’s ears go red. “We could always see how smart you talk with a bulldozer a foot from your face.”

“How would you be able to hear him over the engine?” Howard asks, sounding genuinely interested, and it’s Stuart’s turn to snort.

"Look, I really don't want to get the police involved. I can maybe negotiate a higher price for you, but that could take time. Days. Wouldn't you rather spend that time at home in comfort?"

"I live in the back of the store, and my bed's not all that comfortable anyway."

"Do you think this is going to get you fifteen minutes of fame or something?"

"If I wanted that I'd ask my friend Wil to get me a spot as an extra on a TV show."

"How come you never offered that to Penny?" Bernadette asks.

Stuart looks sidelong at her. "Because I think she can find acting roles on her own merits, and if I implied that she couldn't, she'd kill me."

“Aw, Stuart, that’s really sweet,” Penny herself says, ruffling his hair. She looks like she rolled out of bed and threw on the clean clothes nearest to hand. Stuart knows this because it’s exactly how he got dressed this morning. She hands him a paper takeout cup with steam rising from the lid, and then lowers herself carefully to the pavement, nonchalantly wrapping a flexible bike lock around her wrist and hooking it through a loop of his chain. Then she pulls a mascara wand out of her purse and starts doing her makeup.

“You have to be kidding me,” Benson says, and stomps across the street, already jabbing angrily at his phone.

“I can’t believe you’re all here.” Stuart sips his coffee and closes his eyes as the caffeine and sugar jolt his brain awake.

“You’re our friend. Why wouldn’t we be?” Howard says.

“Well, for one thing, I remember Raj specifically saying, ‘The petition didn’t work, Stuart, they’re not going to change their minds’.” His Indian accent is atrocious and he sees Raj wince.

“This is more than just names on paper, though.”

“Fight the power!” Bernadette contributes.

“Rock on,” says Penny, moving on to her eyeliner.

 

Leonard, Sheldon, and Amy show up all in a group maybe ten minutes later. Amy is carrying one end of a particularly lurid pink rope that Stuart’s _sure_ he’s seen in the window of the Good Vibrations over on De Lacey. The other end is knotted artfully around Leonard and Sheldon’s wrists, binding them together. Stuart feels rather than hears Penny start laughing beside him. Leonard and Amy are both in regular work clothes; Sheldon is wearing a plaid dressing gown over his.

Amy ties the guys to Howard like a pair of puppies to a convenient telephone pole and then sits down beside Bernadette.

“If this doesn’t work, are you going to have a closing down sale?” Sheldon asks.

“ _Shel_ don!” Penny, Amy, Bernadette, and Raj chorus in perfect unison. Leonard and Howard just roll their eyes, also in perfect unison.

“If this doesn’t work,” Stuart says, “you can _have_ the damn comics.”

“Really?”

“ _No_!” This time it’s all six of them. Leonard takes a step away from Sheldon and almost steps on Amy. Amy yelps as she recoils and promptly smacks her head on Howard’s knee. Stuart looks away, since he’s prone to embarrassment by proxy, and notes that Penny’s finished her makeup and is now combing her hair.

“You look great,” he tells her.

“I don’t.” She wrestles with a knot. “I feel like shit. I’m broke, and...” She trails off. “Sorry. Bad timing.”

“Give me that.” Stuart takes the comb and starts working the tangles out of her hair. “Just because this is happening to me doesn’t mean bad stuff’s going to stop happening to everyone else.”

“I hope you’ve finished having your fun.” Benson is back.

“No, this is better than Disneyland. I think I’ll stay here all week,” Stuart says, concentrating on Penny’s hair slipping golden through his fingers.

“The police will be here soon.”

“Oh, good, we need their cuffs for Amy and Bernadette,” Raj says, nodding at the two women in question. “They’re just sitting there and, you know, if they’re not tied up they could get away any time.”

“Bernie’s pretty good at getting untied anyway,” Howard TMIs.

“You’ll get their cuffs all right. You’re obstructing us, and creating a public disturbance.”

Stuart lets go of the comb and stands up, dragging Raj with him. He steps out to the length of the chain – maybe three feet – and pointedly examines the street. Boarded up and soaped over windows, as far as the eye can see. Chain link fence over where a couple of buildings already got pulled down. There’s a loose group of gawkers a little further down. Apart from that, Benson and his crew are the only “public” in sight.

“They don’t look too disturbed,” Raj says.

“No. We’re just sitting here.” Stuart suits the action to the word, settling back on the sidewalk. It’s cool through the worn denim of his jeans. Raj, beside him, is a warmer presence; Penny scootches up on his other side and leans her head on his shoulder, garnering him a side-eye from Leonard. “There’s nothing disturbing about that.”

“Nothing disturbing? Are you sure? I mean, look at that knotwork. Clearly Amy’s been practicing shibari,” Howard says.

“It _is_ pretty fancy,” Penny says, craning her neck to look down the line. “Ames, do you think you could teach me that?”

“Well, I did bring some extra rope, just in case.” Amy digs through her handbag. “Bernadette, can you put your arms out in front of you?”

“Excuse me?” Benson tries.

“Not now, we’re busy,” Amy says, looping one end of the cord around Bernadette’s wrists and hooking her finger under it to pull the other end through.

Benson stalks off muttering something about freaking bondage freaks doing the police’s freaking job for them. Amy serenely asks Bernadette to lift her arms enough so that she can start knotting the rope around her torso. Even Sheldon looks intrigued.

 

The next people to arrive are the police. Two squad cars, lights running but sirens silent, so barely anyone notices at first because they’re all watching what Amy’s doing with her rope. In fact, Amy happens to see them first, and hitches the free end of the rope through the one binding Leonard and Sheldon together, before knotting it around her own wrist.

“What... oh.” Penny gives the quartet of officers her most disarming smile. “Hi.”

“Which one of you is Stuart Bloom?” The officer in charge does not smile back. His face looks like he hasn’t smiled for the last twenty or so years. His face looks like he is already tired of this bullshit and he’s only been here for a few seconds.

A harmonious octet of silence is his only response.

“Look. We’re prepared to let the rest of you go, if you don’t cause any more fuss. But we can and will charge you with failure to disperse if you don’t pack up and go right now.”

“Isn’t that for riots, not peaceful protests?” Sheldon asks.

“You passed the point of peaceful protest when you prevented these gentlemen from carrying out the duties for which they were employed, for which you had ample prior warning.” The cop eyes Sheldon. “Are you Stuart Bloom?”

“No, he’s not,” Stuart says. “I am.” He doesn’t get up. “Guys, just go before he decides to fine you or something.”

“Are you kidding?” Raj says. “We’re all in this together.”

“Sitting here’s one thing. I don’t want this to cost you.”

“Then what’s the point?” Howard asks. “We came down here to make a point.”

“I’d love to hear that point,” the officer rumbles.

“Inadequate relocation costs were offered,” Penny says, trying the disarming smile again.

“The tenant wasn’t given enough time to find a comparably priced and located property to rent,” Bernadette says, sounding remarkably like Raj’s sister.

“It’s just the vibe of the whole thing,” Raj says.

The cop considers this, and then says, “We can discuss these issues further with Mr Bloom. At the station.”

Penny’s the first to stand up, followed by Raj, who drags Stuart up with him. Howard, Leonard, and Sheldon unhuddle and straighten the line out; Amy and Bernadette stand in front of them. Most of them fold their arms. Bernadette’s are complicatedly bound behind her back, so she can’t, but she has a magnificent glare.

“He’s not going without me,” Penny says.

“Or me,” Raj says.

The others affirm their commitment as well. Stuart feels a little like he’s going to cry, although that could be a pre-emptive reaction to the fact that he can see a pepper spray canister on at least one of the cops’ belts.

The officer sighs. “Fine, then; you’re all under arrest for failure to disperse, to start with.” He glances at one of the other cops. “We’re going to need a couple more cars down here.”

Rain starts spattering lightly as the officer reads them their rights. Stuart looks across the street through the gently falling mist. Benson still looks pissed off, probably because if the weather turns really bad his crew won’t be able to work anyway.

For his own part, Stuart’s not sure how much he even cares any more. Getting the first letter scared the shit out of him, but it’s like... he feels like the world has just knocked him down one too many times this time and, even standing here with these frankly amazing people who care about him enough to make a stand with him, he’s not sure if there’s any way to get back up again.

 

Wil shows up after they’ve been in the holding cells for just under two hours, the girls in one, the guys in the next one. Sheldon’s been trying to persuade everyone to play three-dimensional, three-player Tic-Tac-Toe. Nobody has accepted. Sheldon has also been trying to resume the Robins argument he and Stuart were having going on five years ago now, and Penny looks like she’s going to fall asleep just at the thought of it.

“Stuie, for God’s sake, why didn’t you say anything sooner?” Wil gripes.

“How?” Stuart asks. “What would I have said? There wasn’t anything we could really have done about it.”

“This from the man who chained himself to the store _door_.”

“It doesn’t mean he can’t have principles,” Amy says from the next cell.

“I’m bailing you all out anyway,” Wil says, “and Stuart, you’re coming home with me.”

“No, he’s coming home with _me_ ,” Raj says unexpectedly. “I should never have let him move out in the first place.”

“Between all of us we should be able to get your stock packed and moved by tomorrow.” Wil steps aside to let one of the cops unlock the cell.

“Oh, most of it’s in storage already. I didn’t really think this would work.”

“It didn’t,” Sheldon says. “You’re still going to lose your store, and now we’ve all done hard time.”

“Sheldon, check your damn privilege,” Penny says. “Stuart, can we at least help you find a new place to rent?”

“I was looking at maybe moving out to Arcadia... it’s a _little_ cheaper there...”

“No!” Raj blurts. “Um. I mean, that would be a big commute from my place.”

“I don’t have to stay with you once I find somewhere; there’s nothing wrong with sleeping in the stockroom.”

“There is everything wrong with sleeping in the stockroom, and also with the fact that you think that’s an okay thing to say,” Wil says.

“Privilege,” Penny says again.

“Privilege yourself,” Leonard says. “ _You_ manage renting _your_ place.”

“I’m not renting a _store_ as well. I mean, I’m not great at math, but I’m pretty sure renting two places costs more than renting one.”

“Why don’t we all go back to _my_ place and discuss this over pizza?” Sheldon offers.

“That’s really nice of you, Sheldon,” Amy says.

“Well, I have to pee, and I’m not doing it in front of everyone.”

“Can I bail all of them out _except_ him, officer?” Wil asks.

 

They have to sign a bunch of paperwork, but eventually they’re walking out of the station carrying their assorted cuffs, chains, and rope, which must give the few people passing by outside something to think about.

“What are you going to do now?” Penny asks Stuart.

“Keep looking for a new store that doesn’t have an exorbitant lease. Move the last of the stock into the storage unit. Set up my bed in the storage unit,” Stuart adds just to needle Wil and Raj as the champions of the Adopt-a-Small-Business-Owner program.

“You will _not_ ,” Raj says. “You’re coming back home to me and Cinnamon.” And he unexpectedly plants a smacker of a kiss on Stuart’s cheek, right by the corner of his mouth.

“Um, wow,” Howard says. “You’re being awfully touchy-feely.”

“Prison changed me,” Raj says.

“We were only in there for like two hours.”

“Prison changed me _quickly_.”

Penny starts laughing so hard, and it’s such a pretty sound, that Stuart bites his tongue over telling her that Raj is riffing off of a webcomic.

They have to split up then to pick up cars and so on, but the offer of pizza is still on the table, and Sheldon’s making noises about playing Warlords since Wil is with them anyway, and Stuart feels like this time Sheldon’s probably not going to insist he plays his cards in the order that Howard would.

He’s not fake Wolowitz any more. He’s just real him.


End file.
